Article

Headaches: Study Shows Chiropractic Effective

Evidence reports recently released by the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (FCER) show the effectiveness of chiropractic care for individuals that suffer with Tension Headaches. The story released February of 2001, was the continuation of a report done at Duke University several years earlier. In the study many different types of physical and behavioral treatments were used for patients with headaches. Chiropractic care was specifically in comparison with amitriptyline, a typical medication used for headaches.

In this study the staff at the Duke Center screened articles from the literature, created evidence tables, and analyzed the quality and magnitude of results from these studies. They then drafted an evidence report with peer review coming from a panel of 25 reviewers, including researchers and clinicians in chiropractic. The results indicated that chiropractic was very successful for patients with tension headaches. When compared to the drug amitriptyline, chiropractic and the drug had similar short-term effects during the episode. However, the drug carried with it an adverse reaction rate in 82% of the patients. Probably the most profound effects were seen after the care was discontinued in the study. In such cases the patients who were on drug therapy essentially returned to the same state as before. However, the patients who had been under chiropractic care continued to show sustained reduction in headache frequency and severity even after the chiropractic care was discontinued. The implications are that chiropractic is not actually a therapy or treatment, but rather gets to the cause allowing the body to effect a correction that lasts beyond actual care.